Tyler Sayre sparks St. Rose past New Haven

ALBANY - Tyler Sayre looks like he has all the goods to give basketball coaches in the Northeast-10 Conference plenty of sleepless nights during the next four years.

Sayre, a freshman forward for The College of Saint Rose, scored 22 points and added six rebounds to lead the Golden Knights to an 83-69 victory over New Haven in the NE-10 opener for both schools Wednesday night at Nolan Gymnasium.

"We think he's going to be a fantastic player and his days of sneaking up on people are probably over as of right now," Saint Rose head coach Brian Beaury said of Sayre. "He's got tremendous poise to go with a very good skill set. To score 22, grab six boards and not have a single turnover in 38 minutes in your first game in this league is pretty darn good."

"We played very well as a team tonight and a lot of guys got involved," said Sayre, who has scored in double figures in all three games this season. "We've got a lot of confidence in each other and the coaches are showing a lot of confidence in us. We're off to a good start and I think we're only going to keep getting better as we work our way through the season."

The Chargers (0-1, 0-2) were within striking distance for much of the contest, but Dorgler was a demon off the bench as he scored eight points - including a pair of 3-pointers - in a span of 1:40 in the second half to help secure the victory. Dorgler added three rebounds, three steals and two assists in 21 minutes.

"I just try to come in and play as hard as I can for as long as I can and bring energy," Dorgler said. "That style of play and just being aggressive overall has always been the bread and butter of my game."

Milka set the tone early for Saint Rose, delivering 13 points and six rebounds in the opening half to stake the Golden Knights to a 41-31 lead at the break. New Haven played well enough to hang around, but the Chargers were never able to wrestle the lead away from Saint Rose.

"This was a nice overall effort tonight and there are a good number of positives we can take from this win," Beaury said. "We got a lot of productive minutes from a variety of guys. Danny Mundweiler was a point and an assist away from a double-double tonight and he only turned the ball over once. Jin Hong came up with a big block and a big basket for us off the bench during a crucial stretch in the second half. Those efforts won't go unnoticed with me. I'm very pleased with how we played tonight."

The Golden Knights were tabbed to finish 14th in the 16-team NE-10 in the league's preseason coaches' poll, which is something Dorgler says the team is using for motivation.

"We know we have a talented team even though the rest of the league may not think so. Coach Beaury has talked to us about playing with a great sense of purpose this season," Dorgler said.